The Versatile Blogger Award

Hello everyone!

I'm honored and excited to write this post!  Why you ask?  Because this post is to acknowledge my nomination for The Versatile Blogger Award!

The lovely Shea, a good friend I've obtained in joining the polish community, was kind enough to nominate me for this award, humbling me beyond belief.  It's always such a pleasant surprise to be recognized for simply doing something you enjoy!

I enjoy sharing my love of nail polish with all of you, and never expect to receive praise, so it's always a humbling experience.

So, what does The Versatile Blogger Award entail?  I'm glad you asked!

Here are the rules to this award: 

1. Nominate 15 fellow bloggers who are relatively new to blogging

2. Let them know that you have nominated them.
3. Share 7 random facts about yourself.
4. Thank the bloggers who have nominated you.
5. Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your post

7 Random Facts About Me

1.                   I'm also obsessed with perfume, but polish is a slightly cheaper habit, so it's more in the forefront.

2.                   I love reading, particularly teen and young adult fiction (don't judge me haha).

3.                   I'm a huge 90s Nicktoons fan!

4.                   I have a slew of imaginary relationships with celebrities...and fictional characters (again, don't judge me haha)

5.                   I like to fall asleep with the TV on, as much as my parents wish I didn't.

6.                   I'm a Texas Aggie, which means a die hard football fan...Texas A&M and specific pro teams only.

7.                   I am a fount of useless trivia, and my friends laugh at the fact that I can connect any actor to a member of the cast of Twilight.

My Nominee's are 
 

1. Swatch Out!
2. Nail Polish In My Eyes!
3. ehmkay nails 
4. Just Talk Nails 
5. Kinzie's Nail Hut 
6. Nails 4 Dummies 
7. Peer Pressure Polish 
8. Plump and Polished 
9. Polished 
10. The Life, Times, and Lacquers of Lilmoon  

((Right now, I could only come up with 10 bloggers off the top of my head))

Now that I've compelted that, I want to thank Shea again, and thank all of you for reading my blog!!

Hugs & Kisses & Great Polishes!

~ Cat  

KBShimmer Spring 2013 Polish Press Release!!

Hi all!

My Nailtrition treatment is almost over, and I'm almost back from my blogging hiatus!

But until then, I wanted to take a chance to post something really quickly that I hope will interest you all.

I received notification via a press release from KB Shimmer of their new spring line of polishes and I wanted to share it with you!  (I had to slightly change the size of the images to fit the page, but you can click them to see them full size!)

 

Contact: Christy Rose                                               FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Email: Sales@KBShimmer.com

KBSHIMMER ANNOUNCES RELEASE OF NINE NEW POLISHES

KBShimmer Spring Polish Line Set For Release February 15^th, 2013

KBShimmer is excited to announce the addition of 9 new colors to their 3-Free glitter polish line.  Owner Christy Rose says "With Easter, warmer weather, and Spring Break fast approaching February is the ideal time to introduce softer pastels to our lineup, but also to add a splash of bold color." 

The spring lineup includes three glitter top coats, two bold jellies, and four creamy pastels, one of which is scented.  "Our new line was created to play off the softer palette of spring, but also to accent unique glitters like small black dots and spring 2013 Pantone colors like the color of the year, Emerald Green.  We are also excited to debut this collection in our new printed bottles.  With the printed bottles, and our glitter grabbing flat brush, we feel our polish is a solid addition to any collection" says Rose. 

KBSHimmer - spRING 2013 COLLECTION

A Dot Mess - Fuchsia and black dots, hexes, and micro slices in a clear base - Top Coat

Pastel Me More - Pastel colored glitters in a rainbow of colors and range of sizes - Top Coat

Squared Away - Square glitters in a variety of sizes, colors and finishes including metallic and holographic in a clear base - Top Coat

Spring Training - Soft green crelly full of pink, purple, blue and green floral toned glitters, scented with a floral freesia note - Full coverage in 2-3 coats

Where My Peeps At - Soft yellow crelly with circle and tiny hex glitter in fun jelly bean like shades - Full coverage in 2-3 coats

Lottie Dottie - Turquoise and fuchsia dots and coordinating glitters micro slices in a soft white base - Full coverage in 2-3 coats

Iris My Case - Violet pastel crelly with glitters in purple, pink, silver and blue - Full coverage in 2-3 coats

Get Clover It - Emerald green jelly with micro shimmer and circle glitter in shades of green, gold and turquoise- Best in 3 coats or layered over coordinating polish to cover nail line

I Got A Crush On Blue - Royal blue jelly with holographic silver glitters ranging from micro to extra large- Best in 3 coats or layered over coordinating polish to cover nail line

Shipping February 15, 2013

KBShimmer products can be found at http://www.KBShimmer.com.  For sales outside of the US visit http://www.HarlowandCo.org.

KBShimmer was founded in 2008 by the husband and wife team of Jason and Christy Rose.  KBShimmer offers unique and colorful nail glitter nail polishes that are Big 3 Free, with all glitter formulas being completely free of chemicals such as toluene, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, and dibutyl phthalate (DBP).  KBShimmer glitter polishes feature a flat glitter grabbing brush for easy application.  KBShimmer also offers a 2-free quick dry polish top coat, olive oil lotion, sugar scrubs, lip balms, cold process soaps and other skin care products.

###

If you would like more information about KBShimmer, contact Christy Rose by emailing sales@kbshimmer.com or visiting http://www.KBShimmer.com.

- 2013 KBShimmer. All rights reserved

Orly Nailtrition Week 1

Hi all!

Sorry it's been so long, but there's not a lot going on with my nails while I'm doing this treatment (other than the fact that I tore my other thumb nail and had to patch it, and I'm sure you didn't need to see that again haha).

So I've had to be reluctantly absent, but I'm back to make a post about the progress of my first week of Nailtrition (which means I still have one more week :/ but it's something!)

So I wanted to give a before and after for this first week out of two.

Here is what my nails looked like before I did the week of treatment:

As you can see they were pretty thin, and though not exactly short, very slow growing and brittle.

I put on two coats of Nailtrition the first day and one coat every day after that and here we are one week later.

It may not look like a huge difference, but already my nails are longer and quite a bit thicker than before even after just one week.

Before this pic, I removed the first week of Nailtrition (don't worry that's what you're supposed to do).  And I'm now going to repeat the process (two coats today and one coat every day after) for another week.

I'll be back to show you the final result next week and then back to real polish!!

So what do you guys think?  What do you use to make or keep your nails healthy?

Hugs & Kisses & Great Polishes!

~ Cat

BLOG SALE/SWAP!

Hey all!

Wanted to let you know that I've posted a Blog Sale/Swap!

You can find it on the tabs at the top of the page!

Enjoy!

Nail patching... (pic spam)

Ok, so apparently my worry about not having things to post while I'm using Nailtrition was all in vain.  I'm getting all kinds of things to post about...and not anything I'm particularly fond of, though it is nice to share some tips.

What do I mean?

Well last night I got to experience the epitome of nail blogger nightmares...a tear in my nail!

I was opening a box, and my hand slipped and I felt a pull and I looked down and it was all I could do not to cry.

This is what I found:

You can see the torn corner on the upper right of my thumb nail, a perfect little square rip and it hurt like no one's business.

Now, it's taken we quite some time to get my nails where they'll grow nicely and I knew I wasn't going to be able to bring myself to cutting this nail and starting over.

So instead, I remembered an awesome tutorial I watched on Collette's (SimpleLittlePleasure's) YouTube channel for silk wraps for rips and breaks.  Seen here:

So I carefully wrapped my thumb in a bandaid to sleep so I wouldn't snag the nail, and first thing this morning I ran to Sally to pick up some supplies.  Now, I know you can use a teabag, but I didn't have any, or nail glue or any of the other things I'd need so this was just as easy of an option, and its nice to have a lot of extra silk wraps for the future.

Here's what I used (pretty much exactly what Colette used):

All except for the manicure scissors (I already had those) I bought at Sally's.  In the silk wraps, you get 40 nail shaped wraps, but for small tears you can cut smaller pieces and get much more use out of them.  I also got a bottle of gel resin and a four-sided buffer.

So following the steps in the video I proceeded to repair my nail.

Here is the application of the piece of silk patch.

After trimming the excess, applying the 1st layer of resin, and filing off the excess patch.

After second layer of resin and buffing the seams to make the nail more even.

After applying two coats of Nailtrition.

As you can see, you can barely see the patch on the nail at all.  In person there's a little bit of a visible seam, but you can't feel it when you touch it.

Hopefully the patch will stay on long enough for my nail to grow out, allowing me to file off the break over time without having the chop off the length of my nail.

Have you ever had to repair a break?  How'd it go, and what did you use?

Hugs & Kisses & Great Polishes!

~ Cat

Nail Whitening!

Hi everyone!

I have a little bit different of a post for you today.

Since I'm starting my round of Orly Nailtrition this week, I thought this would also be the perfect opportunity to get a bit of the staining off of my nails.

I've heard a few tips before but the one I've heard the most is the whitening toothpaste method, so I thought I'd try it!

Here's a pic of my naked nails before the toothpaste:

I know...it's pretty gross, but with the fact that I'm always wearing nail polish, its kind of inevitable, plus it gets covered up a lot so I don't pay much attention to the stains.  But on the occasion that my nails are polish-less for any period of time, it's a distracting mess!

So I wanted to try one of the more common ways to whiten my nails.

I had some Arm & Hammer Extra Whitening toothpaste (though I've been told any whitening toothpaste should work) that had some baking soda and peroxide in it, so I thought it would give good results.  I took a little dab for each nail, rubbing it in a bit. Then I let the toothpaste sit on my nails for about 30 minutes (just because of how bad the staining was).  Then I used a nail brush to scrub the toothpaste on my nails and rinsed.

Here are the results!

There's still a little staining, I'll probably have to do a few more treatments once i'm through my Nailtrition rounds, but you can tell that there's a BIG difference!

What do you guys think?  Have you ever done the toothpaste method, or found something that works even better?

Let me know below!

Hugs & Kisses & Great Polishes!!

~ Cat

The Twisted Grapevine - CoverGirl Outlast Stay Brilliant Review

Hi all!

I'm bringing out another untried (from the marathon of untrieds that is still in it's beginning stages haha).  It's a new polish, from CoverGirl's Outlast line.  Now I'm sure some if not all of you have seen or used some form of CoverGirl Outlast product, their mascara or foundation or anything else of the sort.  But the Outlast Stay Brilliant polishes are their newest addition to the collection.

The CoverGirl Outlast Stay Brilliant polishes come in a fairly large selection of colors for being such a newly released collection.  Most of the shades are fairly basic (though not unattractive), coming in creme shades ranging from pale pink to true black.  A few additions have been some more complex shades in shimmers and frosts.  All of the colors are gorgeous, but me being me, I'm drawn to the unique shades of course!

So when I was coming to the decision of what polishes to wear next, I thought I'd take the opportunity to try one of the new CoverGirl polishes and give a bit of a review!

The polish I have today is Grapevine, and it's one of three I've gotten from their line.

CoverGirl Grapevine is a very saturated red-toned purple shimmer/frost (it's showing more violet in the picture of course...purples being so hard to photograph).  The polish goes on smoothly, and is opaque in 2-3 coats depending on your technique.  The pigmentation and color payoff are fantastic and the dry time is good too.  Clean up around my nail beds was easy, leaving little to no staining on my skin.  In all honesty the only fault I can find with the polish is how small the bottle is.  It's a .37 fl oz bottle (a little over half of most polish bottles) and it is about $4-$5 at most drugstores, Walmarts, etc.  The price may seem a little steep for a little less product than most other brands, but the colors are definitely worth it in my opinion!

And in case your wondering, no Grapevine doesn't come with the flakie look, I wanted to add a little something extra and added a coat of Finger Paints Twisted.

So what do you guys think?  Are you going to or have you tried the CoverGirl polishes?

Oh, also, I was noticing my nails are feeling a bit thin, and I was thinking of doing a treatment of Orly Nailtrition.  It's a two week process, which means no new polish for two weeks, but I was thinking if you all wanted to see a before and after of how my nails look after a treatment, I'd be happy to do that! 

Just let me know below!

Hugs & Kisses & Great Polishes!

~ Cat